


The Galdin Quay Job

by Unlikelyoptimist



Category: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy XV, Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Leverage Fusion, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-05 03:02:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12181650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unlikelyoptimist/pseuds/Unlikelyoptimist
Summary: It's just one job, even if it means working with a group of criminals- that's what Lunafreya Nox Fleuret tells herself when she's approached with the chance to right a wrong from her past. After all, how hard can it be? Noctis, Gladio, Prompto, and Ignis each come with their own unique skillsets, but they all have one thing in common: they're accustomed to working alone. After their job together, however, things go south and they find themselves forced to work together a second time to save their own skins. They strike up a temporary truce, which leads to something much more dangerous: a team.(I'm pretending this is a Serious Fic but really it's just a shameless Leverage AU because what better way to explore team dynamics than to make them all criminals)





	1. Prologue

_Hitter_

For someone who’d come from a long line of bodyguards in private security, it turned out that Gladiolus Amicitia did just fine on the other side of the equation too. He’d had it just about up to his neck protecting spoiled rich kids from imaginary threats, watching good men take hits for charges who didn’t deserve it.

At first, he’d tried the military, figuring he’d rather get stabbed for someone who’d have his back than someone who wanted to hide behind it. Eventually, he’d settled for this. At least in this line of work, if someone was being a pain in the ass, he got to punch their teeth right back down their throat.

After too many let-downs and even more painful goodbyes, Gladio had started getting used to working on his own. It was better this way, simpler. And if some of what he’d done during his earliest days on the path of criminality ever bothered him, there was always a fight just begging to distract him not more than a phone call away.

_Hacker_

When you were as lazy as Noctis Caelum, you could do two things: fail, or cheat. Noctis had chosen the latter wholeheartedly, fueling what little motivation he had into his natural attraction to anything electronic. By five, he’d gotten bored with the video games his father supplied, and he’d started writing the code for his own.

By fifteen, he’d realized that the easiest way to resist the crushing weight of all the rules he was expected to follow was to break them – and if you were going to break the rules, why not go all the way? If Noctis was going to have to struggle no matter what, he was doing it his way.

For someone who could tap into bank security systems with a few keystrokes and wipe all evidence of his existence from a security camera without a trace, there wasn’t much standing in his way. He disappeared, and left behind every expectation he was sure he’d never have been able to fulfill. Embracing his status as a fuck-up meant that there was no one left to disappoint, and a whole world of underestimation to take advantage of.

_Grifter_

If you asked Ignis Scienta who he was, he’d probably smile and say just one thing: “Whoever you need me to be.”

That was the key factor that most grifters missed out on, really. The amateurs would try and give a mark what they wanted, which was often a mistake. What people wanted rarely aligned with what was good for them, and it was always too easy to pick out a grifter pandering too blatantly to surface desires.

People would always trust those could lead them to what they needed, what they craved on the basest, most instinctual level, and so that’s who Ignis became. Around others, he was a nurturer, a lover, a confidante, a tease. And if there was more to him than that, it never mattered – he never let anyone stick around long enough to see it.

_Thief_

It wasn’t that Prompto – just Prompto, because last names were just unwelcome gifts from unimpressive parents – hated people. He liked people well enough; most people were fine, even fun. He just didn’t trust them.

Things, on the other hand, were a lot easier to understand. He hadn’t grown up with a lot of things, and he intended to rectify that…and then some. There was something therapeutic about having things, and even more so about selling them for money. Jewelry was his favorite; necklaces and bracelets and rings, all signs of luxury he’d had flashed at him to shame him for having nothing.

It felt good to steal them, like taking the experiences back. It felt even better to sell them, as if with each exchange, he was closer to being rid of the memories altogether. When he closed his eyes and ran the money under his nose, breathing in deeply, it made him feel clean. Better than any person ever could.

_The Mastermind_

If there was one thing that Lunafreya Nox Fleuret hated, it was watching innocent people suffer. Once upon a time, she’d thought the best way to rectify that was through her profession. As a renowned pediatric surgeon, there was no child she laid her hands on that she couldn’t diagnose, no team that she couldn’t lead through a surgery.

She could save anyone, except for the ones she wasn’t allowed to save.

Luna still remembered the ache of her fists as they’d beat on the windows of the operation room, an arm around her waist dragging her back. A cold voice, telling her that they weren’t wasting time or talents on experimental treatments unless the patient could pay for them. The way something had broken in her heart forever as she watched the child take their last breath.

After that, Luna quit. She would not be complicit in allowing money to determine life, and if that meant torturing herself over a glass of wine every night over the children she could be out saving, then so be it.

_The Client_

It had been almost too easy, the phone calls. An offer of a college acceptance letter to the top school in the country, to a hitter with a soft spot for his sister. The promise of even more complete anonymity to a hacker looking to disappear. A challenge and a paycheck like no other to a thief who was constantly looking to top his own crowning achievements.

In the end, it all amounted to the same thing: the thrill of a job, the tantalizing need to prove themselves in an effort to survive, to feel alive.

Lunafreya was, of course, the difficult one. She always was, but Ardyn wasn’t a man who let difficulty stand in the way of success. His proxy, Dino, was doing a decent job of hooking her in. Of course, it wasn’t as if Dino knew he was a proxy; in his eyes, he was just a businessman looking to make a quick buck. Ardyn stared intently at the video feed from the bar where Luna was taking the first step into criminality.

“…and you’d really be sticking it to the big corporations, in addition to doing me a solid. In fact, I got a feeling you’re in a better position for this than most people. Galdin Quay’s parent company is Astral’s Insurance. Perhaps you recognize the name.”

There it was, the stiffening of the shoulders, the narrowing of the eyes. Good people, noble people, were both easier and harder all at once to seduce into crime. The things they longed for were more abstract, but their moral compasses were terribly suspect to manipulation in the name of ‘justice.’

“Fine. One job.” She looked down at the photos spread across the table in front of her, and grimaced. Not much of a team, but if she could perform an emergency amputation with a ragtag group of college kids on a mission trip over spring break, then she could surely handle one group of petty criminals.


	2. Getting In

As it turned out, ‘petty’ was just the right word to describe these criminals.

“Y’know, when I hacked into the Hammerhead mainframe and stole every auto-driving car in their garage, I did it without some uppity blonde snapping into my ear.” 

Headset pinching at her ear, Luna took a long, even breath. It wouldn’t do to lose her temper with a brat who’d barely made it out of puberty, not if she was going to keep them under control. 

“What’ve you got against uppity blondes? I think we’re great. Although my hair’s a much brighter blonde than Luna’s. More like traditional gold, less of that white-gold artificial crap. Which is actually just gold mixed with some other alloy, like nickel, and I don’t know why anyone would devalue the prettiest metal on earth-“

“If you don’t shut up, you’re gonna find out what it feels like to try chattering with a bruised trachea.”

Breathe in for ten, out for five. Despite her growing irritation, a life of professionalism kept her from snapping at all three of them. The best way to have control was to be in control.

The schematics of the Galdin Quay’s office building were scattered around her, a result of a week’s planning done for the rush job. There were two computers with separate security feeds up courtesy of Noctis – or as his ridiculous tag dubbed him, ‘PrinceofLucis.’

Honestly, she’d worked in a pediatrics for five years and it was still the most childish thing she’d ever seen. 

“Eyes on the prize. If you all truly dislike each other so much, you should be all the more motivated to finish this and get the job done. Prompto, are you in position?”

“Do birds fly?” There was a pause as Luna waited for a real answer. There were no cameras pointed at the roof where Prompto was perched, a harness attached and a cap over his vibrant golden hair, which was precisely why they’d picked it. “Well, wait. Not all birds fly.”

She might not have a visual, but she could hear his smile.

“But I do.”

* * *

 

Prompto had never worked on a team like this before. He knew of them, of course, but they’d always seemed too messy for him, and it was just four more ways to split the loot. He wasn’t used to the constant chatter over the earpieces Noctis had provided. He didn’t necessarily like the quiet, but at least it was familiar, like the ridge of his harness digging into his skin or the burn of the wind against his cheeks as he fell.

There was nothing like the fall, the flight. Prompto was always looking for higher and higher buildings, dreaming of the day when he would be able to fall and never stop. 

As usual, his harness yanked him back into reality as he began to slow, finally arriving in front of the window on the thirtieth floor. He wasn’t actually all that clear on what they were stealing – some fancy client files with some codes, or something. He understood enough to know that it was nothing cool or pretty or worth keeping for himself, and so the faster they got it to the client, the better. 

“One moment, Prompto. Noctis, any security cameras in that room?”

“None that’ll see him. Just the vibration sensor, so he should be fine if he uses the gel. Sheesh, this place has less security than a daycare-“

“ _Thank you_ , Noctis, that’ll be all. Prompto, you’re all clear.”

Well. That was sort of nice, he supposed. It was like having one of those avatars from the beginnings of video games that gave you all sorts of helpful hints, but in real life.

“This is a pretty neat trick,” he murmured, pressing a tube to the window and drawing it in a large, precise circle, his other hand pressing a clamp to the glass. The disc came away from the rest of the window without a whisper, and Prompto tossed it without a second thought. Some of the papers on the desk blew into the room as the wind rushed through the hole, followed closely by Prompto. With all the controlled precision of an expert thief, he placed his hands on the table, pressed the release on his rig, and tipped his feet onto the desk in a graceful bridge, vaulting effortlessly onto the floor with barely a sound.

The sensor still beeped a cheerful green. No alarms triggered. All good so far, then.

“Prompto, are you in?”

He started, still unused to having someone track his progress.

“On my way to the electric panel. This thing better not electrocute me,” he said in a petulant voice as he hugged the wall just like they’d talked about, staying neatly in the one camera’s blindspot, and then into a room marked ‘DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE.’

A few pulled wires later, and he grinned.

“Have a fun ride down, guys.” 

* * *

 

“Y’know, I’m usually more of a behind the scenes guy. I usually leave jobs with this much footwork to big guys like you." 

For what felt like the millionth time in five minutes, Gladio resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Christ, these guys _talked._ Micro-management in one ear and two very chatty crazies in his other ear. He was never taking a team job again after this; if he hadn’t been personally promised an amount that would send Iris through four years at her very expensive college of choice with ease, he’d never even have considered it.

Not to mention how small his new teammates were. He’d met small guys, and girls, who could kick an army’s ass and still be home in time for dinner in front of the TV. Broody and Chatterbox were not two of them. He doubted that either one of them could manage more than a few weak blows in a fight, and it set his teeth on edge not to be the first through the door.

No, instead, he was trapped in an elevator shaft with the world’s most annoying tech geek, who’d been whining almost since they started this job.  

“Have a fun ride down, guys.”

“Finally,” he grumbled as the elevator sputtered to life, grinding its way down several floors. When the door opens, they’re directly in front of the server room, and Gladio has to give Luna his grudging respect. He could’ve gotten here on his own, but it would have taken a lot more punching and a lot less discretion to do it.

“Alright, ‘Princess’ or whatever your screen name is. Do the thing you’re here for so we can all get the hell out and get paid.”

“You’re right. This is what I’m here for,” Noctis said with some satisfaction as he pulled a device out of his back, pulling open a panel and sticking a few wires from the device into the panel. Instantly, numbers began flickering over the device’s screen, some of them clicking into place while others whirred past. “You, on the other hand, don’t seem to be doing a whole lot except standing there and brooding like it’s your job. What exactly would you do if I weren’t here, huh? Punch the console until it gave you the door code?”

Gladio opened his mouth, but never got a chance to tell Noctis just exactly what he would be doing if he’d been alone on this job besides enjoying it a hell of a lot more, because Luna was talking in her ‘we’ve got a problem voice.’

“Prompto, why are there only four guards in the security room?”

There was silence, presumably while Prompto checked his own portable screen that Noctis had lent him. “I don’t know. They’re – wait. Doing a walkthrough. An hour early. That’s…not great.”

Not great. Just what he wanted to hear.

If he concentrated hard enough, Gladio could almost see Luna, brows scrunched in their near-permanent frown, poring through the huge screens she had set up before they left.

“Ah.” She gave an impatient sigh, as though the whole thing were no more inconvenient than a spilled glass, rather than four armed men heading for two very exposed intruders. “The game is on tonight. They’re doing it an hour early so they can be back in time to watch it. Of course.”

Shit. Gladio should have thought of that himself, since he’d remembered being pissed about missing it. Even knowing that, he was sure that he wouldn’t have come to that conclusion on his own.

“Uh, four very scary men heading your way, Noctis.”

Gladio barely even had to look down to see Noctis getting nervous and edgy. Guy really wasn’t used to being out in the field, and Gladio smirked a little in satisfaction. Good. Maybe it’d knock that enormous ego down a peg.

“Noctis, how close are you?”

Five numbers were cemented in place on the digital readout, with the other five spaces still blinking through the numbers at a blinding speed. Halfway there.

“Not gonna make it in time, Luna,” he said while Noctis swore, tapping impatiently at the box and coaxing it along like it was a racehorse rather than an inanimate piece of plastic.

“That’s fine. Gladio, circle back, use Noctis as bait.”

“Use me as _what?_ ”

  
Gladio was gone before Noctis could turn around, back around the corner, and then into a corner shadowed in the dim hallway. The four men would go pounding past him, and he’d need to take out all four before even one could fire, or he’d be carrying a bleeding and highly pissed hacker out of here over his shoulder.

Predictably, four suited men rushed right past, guns drawn but held with a level of undisciplined recklessness that made Gladio’s lip curl in distaste. If people were going to carry guns, the least they could do was learn how to use the damn things right. Loose grips, heavy breathing. These were no highly trained guards; more like bodies hired to stand and look scary.

Silent as shadow itself, Gladio peeled away from the wall, approaching from behind. Noctis was standing with both hands up, the device hanging from the console abandoned. The look on Noctis’ face was resigned but resolute, and Gladio realized that he really did think the hitter had made a run for it without a glance back. In this profession, it wouldn’t have been a surprise so much as procedure, but it still irked Gladio for some reason. After all, he was a criminal, but he wasn’t a dick.

Noctis’ fingers loosened and let the bag he’d been holding begin to fall to the ground as all four men trained their guns on him. Gladio was moving before it had even parted with Noctis’ hand entirely, before Noctis’ eyes could widen with surprise and give away his advantage.

His hand shot out to catch one man right in the throat as his foot snapped out into the back of Guard 2’s knee, buckling his leg. A gun went off into the ceiling, and Gladio seized it, wrenching it from Guard 2’s hand to strike Guard 3 in the temple before he’d even begun to truly turn around. Guard 4 had the dubious honor of actually turning all the way around before Gladio smashed his face into the wall, foot swinging out to hook right into recovering Guard 1’s stomach.

It was a quick fight, and the last gun hit the floor just seconds before Noctis’ bag did. Gladio unloaded the mag from the one gun he’d grabbed, his smile curving all the way from one side of his face to the other in a broad smirk.

“That’s what I do.”


	3. Getting Out

The device finally made a soft beep, and Noctis looked down. Through the numbness of his shock, he looked down see that the door was unlocked. Raising a gloved hand, he pushed, and the door swung soundlessly open.

“Well. I guess that…wasn’t bad.”

  
Wasn’t bad. Holy shit. That guy was like a tank. He’d just taken down four guys with guns faster than Noctis could blink. It was like a ridiculously overpowered character in his video game, except in the flesh.

Big guy rolled his eyes, and Noctis was jolted back to reality. Plans. Right. Get the plans, and get the hell out of here before he got shot.

As he plugged his USB into the mainframe, he shook his head. He never should have let himself get roped into this. Honestly, it wasn’t even like anyone here really appreciated the custom made code-cracker he’d just used to open the console, or the hours of work it had taken him to tap into the security of an entire forty story building.

Well, maybe Luna. She’d been unflaggingly thorough, forcing him to go through the location of every camera in the building at least three times, listening to his explanations of the building’s security while Prompto had been raiding the pantry and Gladio had been sharpening a literal knife like a cartoon villain.

He’d also told her it would take about 90 seconds to download all the data, and like clockwork, his earpiece buzzed to life exactly as the download completed. He was pretty sure she might be a robot. A beautiful, terrifying robot whose smile means someone’s about to get threatened.

“All done?”

“Yeah. Got what we needed and wiped the whole server, just to be safe. Now it’s time to leave them a little present.”

“What’s that?”

Noctis looked up to see Gladio pushing into the small server room and instantly overcrowding it by the sheer nature of his bulk. Noctis’ grin wasn’t unlike the one Gladio had been wearing moments earlier when incapacitating the guards, who are now trussed up with their own ties and belts in the hallway.

“Oh, just something for them to remember me by,” Noctis said as every screen in the room immediately dissolved into pixelated messes of color. “Time to get out.”

“Uh, about that….”

“More bad news? I know you’re not supposed to shoot the messenger, but I’m starting to not like the sound of your voice in my ear so much,” Noctis said, a little snippier than usual. Lack of sleep and brushes with gunmen did that to him. 

“Well, fine. Now my feelings are hurt, and I’m not gonna tell you about the fact that the roof’s alarms are all back up. Our four unconscious friends reset them just to be safe when they found the open door.

“Fuck,” Noctis swore, instantly tense as he glanced at Gladio. He didn’t expect for a second that the big guy would be helping him out – in this business, and in life, it was every man for themselves.

“Before you panic, open your bags,” Luna’s voice said, infuriatingly superior and unworried. It was easy to be all calm and composed when you were in an office building down the block. Glaring at Gladio, because it was the closest he could get to glaring at Luna, he opened the bag. At the very bottom was a pressed white shirt, and a suit jacket. From the look on Gladio’s face, his bag had the same thing.

So she’d been planning on them going out through the ground floor the whole time?

Gladio was already stripping down to his undershirt, revealing a rippling canvas of black tattoos inked across his arms and shoulders. “Not really the time to stare, princess,” Gladio said as he shrugged his shirt on, and Noctis hurriedly began pulling his own clothes on as they headed for the elevator. 

“Hold it!”

A streak of black and blond and pale skin hurtled into the elevator, torso already bare as he yanked on a red dress shirt. Prompto grinned as he stepped into the elevator, peeling the skintight catsuit all the way off and dropping it unceremoniously to the floor as he pulled on dress slacks.

“This was your plan B? Seriously?”

“Technically that would be plan G.”

Yeah, definitely a robot.

Prompto pulled a notepad and pen out of his bag and shoved a pair of glasses on to his nose, making him look instantly more bookish. Grimacing, Gladio stuck a more visible, old-fashioned earpiece into one ear while donning a pair of shades.

“A little stereotypical,” Noctis said, which earned him a scowl. The doors opened, and he took a deep breath and stepped out, the USB in his pocket feeling as though it were burning a hole there. 

“…and I swear, if you ever drag me back into the office over one of your stupid mistakes this late at night again, I’ll send you packing and blacklist you with every damn employer in this city-“

“So sorry, sir, it won’t happen again,” Prompto said with a fake look of apology so blatantly overdone that Noctis almost winced.

“And you, what the hell do I pay you for if you’re not going to open the damn door? Christ, can’t even find reliable help around here-“

And so they breezed past the guard, who looked mildly uncomfortable at Noctis’ insufferable tone and made to get out of their way as quickly as possible in order to avoid Noctis’ tirade. The second they made it out of the door, Noctis fell silent while Prompto snorted with laughter, Gladio whipping his sunglasses off his face in disgust. 

“You’re a little too good at that. You let that fancy screenname of yours go to your head or something?” Gladio said with a snort as they all got into the car that had pulled up just as they exited the building. In the front seat, looking as though she were out for an evening drive and nothing more, was Luna.

Noctis rolled his eyes as they sped away.

They had no idea.

* * *

“Any time now, Noctis.”

“Yeah, my butt’s colder than the Arctic circle right now.”

“You try piggybacking off wifi in this city. People are possessive, I can’t help it. Gimme a sec.”

Luna watched Noctis glare at his laptop, which was uploading the data at a glacially slow pace while they all shivered in the autumn air. Still, the plan had gone better than she’d expected. It had been, all in all, a successful heist. Amusingly enough, they’d all worked nearly seamlessly with each other, despite their respective reputations as loners.

They could’ve made a good team, if they’d wanted to.

Noctis breathed a sigh of relief. 

“There. All done. Data’s uploaded, payment’s going through to our accounts now.” He snapped his laptop shut, and they all stood there for a moment, staring at each other. 

“Well, as fun as that wasn’t, it’s time for me to hit the road.”

“Right. This was fun, but I got stuff to steal. I mean, do.”

“No love lost here. See you never.”

Luna shook her head, and shoved her hands in the pockets of her long white trench jacket.

“Keep out of trouble, now.”

Each of them gave her a strange look. It was as though they all wanted her to leave, as if they were wishing they’d never met her in the first place, and as though they couldn’t bear for her to go all at once. It struck her once how very young they all looked. 

She swallowed past the lump in her throat. She didn’t do teams, and she didn’t take in strays. Not anymore.

One by one, they all turned and walked away, each in their separate directions, scattering to their separate ends of the city. 

And with that, she’d seen the last of them.

Or so she thought.


	4. The Blowback

If there was one thing Luna hadn’t missed about working as a pediatric surgeon, it had been waking from dead sleep to frantic phone calls. Thus, she was none too pleased to awaken the next morning to Dino’s frantic voice on the phone.

“I’d appreciate it if you could slow down,” Luna said in her sweetest, calmest voice, as she vowed to make sure Noctis infected his computer with a virus just to make up for her lost sleep- 

Except, of course, that she’d never see Noctis again. Or any of them. Nature of the job.

“I hardly see how it’s my fault. I watched the upload go through myself, so-“ 

Oh, he was going to pay for that one. Breathing in deeply through her nose, and then out, she dragged herself out of bed and began pulling on her shoes.

“Yes, yes, I’ll meet you.” She snatched her bag off the counter and headed to her car, vowing to find a way to make Dino’s life miserable just as soon as she was finished helping him.

* * *

He should have known it was too good to be true.

There were too many variables from the start. Too many people, too little to do with too much of a payoff. It had been stupid to take the job, and it was even stupider meeting the damn client in some shit warehouse. Still, he wasn’t just going to walk away. You let one client get away with not paying, and soon enough, they all thought a few apologies and thin excuses would make up for a few million here and there.

He didn’t even bother tensing his shoulders when he caught sight of the barrel of a gun in his peripheral vision, because he could also make out who was holding it.

“Real cute. You know I could break every bone in your hand before the signal to fire that gun even got from your brain to your finger?" 

“At least I’ve got a brain, unlike some of us. You wanna tell me how the hell you managed to switch out the plans when they were in my pocket the whole time? You made a hell of a pickpocket for a guy who’s impossible to miss.”

Gladio rolled his eyes, and considered whether he should take the gun. Kid was more likely to hurt himself with it than anything else, but Gladio figured it wasn’t his problem if some stupid techie shot himself in the foot over some nerves. 

“Yeah, that’s the reasonable explanation here. I took the plans and switched them out, not the guy who had the data the whole time. You probably just spoofed an upload screen so we’d all think they went through, then decided to auction it off yourself. I swear, this is why I never work on teams. Always some greedy asshole trying to maximize his cut.” 

“The safety’s on.” They both turned their heads to see Luna, somehow simultaneously smiling and looking as though she was ready to shoot every single one of them without even a second of remorse. Gladio felt his lips twitch as the idiot actually looked to check, and Gladio plucked the gun from his hand. It took about as much effort as pulling a toy away from a three year old.

“It wasn’t,” Gladio said with a smirk while Noctis made a pathetic attempt to grab the gun back.

“Neither’s mine.”

Blondie might not have been a fighter, but he held the gun a hell of a lot more intentionally than Noctis’ limp wristed, sweaty-palmed grip.

As unconcerned as ever, Luna approached Prompto. Gladio had finally managed to put his finger on why her mannerisms and interactions with them felt so familiar – they reminded him exactly of a kindergarten teacher, with all of their smiles and practiced patience and condescending instructions. The recognition didn’t do much to endear her to him.

Luna lifted a single finger and pressed the gun down until it was pointing at the ground. Prompto was staring at her in a mixture of suspicion and expectation.

“So. All four of us in one place, against all odds. I’m assuming you’re all here because you haven’t been paid?”

One glance exchanged between three people told Gladio everything he needed to know. Luna gave a soft laugh and shook her head.

“That’s unfortunate. Because, if you think about it, the only way to get the four of us here would be to tell us that…and why do you think Dino would want all four of us in the same place?”

Shit.

“Time to _go,_ ” Gladio snarled, turning and running for the nearest exit as the other three followed close. He easily could have outpaced all three, but he fell back to make sure they were in front of him, which turned out to be the correct move not seconds later. Noctis hadn’t even finished tripping over his own damn feet before Gladio had grabbed him by his collar and heaved him back up.

“You can thank me for that later." 

Gladio’s feet were barely scraping over the doorway to the outside when he heard it – the sound of all the air being sucked out of a room, the hiss that proceeded an explosion. 

He had a millisecond to push the two smaller figures in front of him all the way out the door, and then the building blew up with enough force to knock him out cold. 

* * *

 

Prompto woke up in a hospital room. In a bed opposite him was the hacker, looking like a real Sleeping Beauty. The handcuffs that were securing him to the bed were laughably easy to pick, and after he’d used his teeth to undo one of the pins on his jacket, it was seconds before he was swinging the handcuffs around one of his fingers with a grin. 

The cuffs spun a little faster than he’d expected, slipping off the tip of his finger. Their momentum took them sailing directly into Noctis’ face, who awoke with a flinch and a look of utter disbelief.

“Did you just throw that at me?”

A little guiltily, Prompto shook his head. “No. I think one of the security guards threw it at you, and then ran out right away.”

Noctis gave Prompto a look of scathing disbelief before rattling his own hand a little. “Wanna get me out of these, then?”

Prompto considered it, and then shook his head. “No, not really. Maybe later.”

Noctis let out a groan of exasperation. “You’re killing me. Where are we, anyways?”

“Hospital. Cops came right when we were waking up.”

Another groan. “Hospitals and cops. My favorite combination. Luna and Gladio awake yet?”

“Don’t think so. I tried yelling through the vent at them, but no answer.”

It wasn’t that it’d be hard to break out of the room itself. After all, it was hardly vault level security, and the door lock was so simple that they might as well have left the door wide open. No, the main problem was going to be the swarm of cops hanging around. And they _still_ hadn’t been paid.

Even as he considered the window with a speculative look, he heard the low murmur of voices from the other room – Luna sounding groggy, and Gladio even grumpier than usual. Prompto perched on a chair so that his lips were up against the vent, which made for another promising escape possibility. Honestly, he could have left the second he woke up.

So why hadn’t he?

“Took you guys long enough.”

Despite the sound distortion of the vent, Prompto could hear a sigh. Some back and forth between Gladio and Luna, confirming what he’d suspected. Already processed, which means they don’t have long. He should bolt now, and he was already starting to unscrew the vent from the wall when he hears Luna again.

“Gladio, do you trust me?”

A pause. Prompto held perfectly still, eyes slightly narrowed. Noctis has his head cocked as well, listening hard.

“More than most people.”

“That’ll do. Prompto, Noctis?”

“No,” Prompto and Noctis both said, together. Luna was nice. So was Gladio, a little, and Noctis when he felt like it. They were nice, and trusting them would be nice too, but nice didn’t keep anyone out of jail.

On the other hand, Luna had made the effort to get them all out of the building. It would have been easy enough to cut Gladio and Prompto out, letting Luna split the profits evenly with Noctis who had the plans. It would have been easy enough for Gladio to let Noctis trip and die in that warehouse instead of dragging him along.

Maybe he couldn’t necessarily trust them, but he could work with them.

“Okay. I don’t trust you, but I trust you enough. To get me out of this hospital, at least.”

“Then I need a phone. Well, two, actually. One for me, one for Noctis." 

Prompto stared at the door, and then speculatively at Noctis, who raised his eyebrows.

“Not really a fan of the way you’re looking at me there, buddy." 

Prompto crossed the room and straddled Noctis on the bed, whose hand jerked reflexively before appearing to remember that he was cuffed to the bed.

“Hey, now. You’re- I mean, I don’t really think this is the time-“

Prompto raised his hands to Noctis’ neck, pressing his thumbs down a little against Noctis’ windpipe. He had such delicate skin, the color of expensive porcelain. Prompto should know; he’d stolen enough of it.

“Sorry. You make a better damsel in distress than I do,” Prompto said with a sly smile, and he could feel Noctis swallow hard. “Just do a good job of acting, and then I won’t have to _really_ hurt you-“

“Get the fuck off of me! Hey, anyone out there? Anyone gonna help me before this psycho takes my head off!” 

Prompto grinned wider as two cops came rushing in, one for each arm. His hand slipped into a pocket as they dragged him backwards, sliding out a cell phone that he stashed neatly in the bed sheets as they slammed him back onto it. Not as hard as they would have pinned Gladio, though. Being a little guy meant being underestimated, and he could tell they weren’t worried for a second about being overpowered.

They cuffed him again to the bed, this time one on each wrist and both locked in a little tighter. Adorable.

The second they left, Prompto retrieved the pin from where it was buried in the sheets, picked the cuffs open again, and bounced back over to the vent to toss the phone through.

“Two phones, courtesy of your master thief and one damsel in distress.”

“Perfect.”

* * *

Two phone calls, one fax and some hacking later, they’ve all walked out of the hospital as miraculously free men, instead of in cuffs and right into the back of a police cruiser.

Well, technically they’d still gotten into a police cruiser, but it had been one that they’d commandeered on their own, and they’d taken it all the way back to his loft without so much as a hint of being followed.

“Gotta admit, that was quick thinking,” Noctis said as he let them back into his loft. “Impersonating an undercover officer and walking us all out of there as perps? Classic.” His eyes never left his phone as they walked into his apartment.

Normally, it’d be a problem that anyone knew where he lived, much less this bunch of criminals, but it’s irrelevant now. The place will be empty in a few hours.

“So…let’s see. Luna, you’re pretty pale, so I’m gonna send you to London. Nice and rainy, not much sunburn to worry about. Gladio, you’re a dick, have fun in Russia. And Prompto, you can go Paris.”

“Paris for the guy who tries to choke the shit out of you, and Russia for the guy who saves your damn life? Someone’s clearly playing favorites here.”

Noctis opened his mouth to reply, and stopped when he saw Luna’s face. Unlike the rest of them, she wasn’t reaching for her phone, or frantically trying to make preparations. She was standing perfectly still, leaning against the glass window and staring at them.

“So you’re going to run?”

Noctis exchanged a glance with both Gladio and Prompto, both of whom looked as puzzled as he did.

“Uh…yeah,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Because that’s what you do when someone wants to kill you badly enough to blow up a building. You run. Well, I run. You can hang around to say hi if you want.”

She shook her head, looking at each one of them in turn. 

“And then what? You go back underground, constantly looking over your shoulder, hoping he’s not going to find you? I’m sure that’ll do wonders for your reputations.”

This time when he glanced around for support, he got less. Gladio stared at Luna with an expression that’s almost intrigued, and all he can do is shake his head in disbelief.

“I’m assuming you got something in mind.”

“I do. Payback, and payback that’ll pay.”

Well, that’s Prompto on the hook. Noctis doubts the guy’s really the type to stick around for payback alone, but a paycheck is enough to keep most thieves interested.

They’re looking at him now. The one holdout. His first instinct is still to bolt for the hills and to just flood the guy’s powerpoints with porn for the next big board presentation, but…

Well, how much safer could you get than having a monster like Gladio for a bodyguard? Besides, if the look on Luna’s face was anything to go off of, this guy’s about to get a hell of a lot more than a gentle slap on the wrist in the way of payback.

“Fine, fine, I’ll stick around for one more job. Only cause you guys can barely open an email without my help.” 

“Perfect. I do have a plan, but I’m going to need a grifter. I presume that one of you has some kind of contact.”

Noctis shrugged, shaking his head. Grifters, in his experience, are the least trustworthy type of criminal, and the ones most likely to throw you under the bus without a second thought. From the way his nose is scrunching up in distaste, Noctis can guess that Prompto feels the same way. 

“Should’ve known you two loners don’t have enough friends for that. Yeah, I’ve got a guy.” From the way he’s smirking, Noctis can guess how Gladio met this ‘guy.’ Luna looks unsurprised. 

“I thought you might. Let’s go meet him, then.”


	5. The Grifter

“The library’s closed.” 

“That’s a damn shame. I got a request that really can’t wait.” 

Ignis’ hand tightened on the pistol contained behind the copy of ‘Clash of the Astrals: a Study of Modern Mythology’ stashed under his desk.

“I have a feeling that whatever that request might be, I won’t be able to help you,” he said, voice still ostensibly pleasant as he finally looked up. “Or your friends lurking in the section on civil rights biographies.” 

“Business associates would be a more accurate term,” said a woman who stepped up to the counter. Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, whom to his knowledge was technically a wanted felon until someone wiped her record the day before. News, after all, travels fast. 

“An equally unlucky association,” he said, and Gladio rolled his eyes. 

“C’mon, Specs, don’t be a pain. I told you, that last job-“ 

His copy of “Advanced Baking Recipes’ slammed shut as he exhaled through his nose. This had been a nice job. Not as exciting as others, surely, but a nice job nonetheless, and he’d only had a few more days until they moved the works of the late Tenebrean history for a temporary private display here. He would have had the full set, and with the library none the wiser. 

“I need to close up here. If you’re going to insist on pestering me further, then you can wait outside.” 

He half hoped that they’d be gone by the time he exited half an hour later, but he supposed it would be too much to ask for Gladiolus to take a hint. He had to admit he was curious as to why Gladio was accompanied by a former pediatric surgeon and two of the last people he ever would have expected to see associating with anyone, much less with Gladio. 

“It really must be important if you’re willing to bother me about it like this,” he said, voice less clipped and with a vaguely accented undertone now that they were outside of the library. “I hope you’re happy with yourself, Gladiolus. I’ve been casing this place for three weeks.” 

Lunafreya, who was looking more amused than anything else, took a half step forward. Smart of her, to deflect attention from Gladio upon sensing perceived hostility. Gladio hadn’t stopped grinning at him, which was quite infuriating, but to be expected. As anticipated, there was no getting rid of him for long. 

“Sorry, Iggy. It’s sort of a time-sensitive job, and you’re not real forthcoming with your contact information.” 

“Given your reputation, I presume you can guess why we’re here.” 

Ignis turned his expression back to Luna, gaze cool and evaluating. He flicked his gaze briefly back to the dark-haired teenager, and the blonde who seemed to be trying to determine how many items he could pick from his companion’s pocket. Noctis Lucis Caelum and Prompto. Perhaps hell truly had frozen over. 

“I can guess, although I never would have unless I’d seen it with my own eyes, Ms. Fleuret,” he said, raising his eyebrows slightly. “I didn’t really think this was your business, and none of your companions are known to work in a team, much less twice in a row.” 

“You know what they say of desperate times,” she said, and Ignis found himself understanding more and more clearly how exactly such an unlikely situation had come to occur. The sweetness in her voice was like sugar painted over steel; whatever she was aiming to accomplish, she certainly had the discipline and the charisma to pull it off. 

“I do.” He heaved a sigh. He was going to help, of course, which he’d decided as soon as Gladio stepped into the library with two brat teenagers and an honest woman at his side. Some things truly were too fascinating to pass up, and the collection of Tenebrean works would pop up soon enough. Perhaps, if he was feeling lazy, he’d just buy them. 

“Well, since Gladiolus has so generously volunteered my name, I suppose there’s no harm in working one job. I will, of course, expect a substantial cut. And a drink,” he said, eyes firmly on Gladio now, who raised his hands in a pacifying gesture. 

“Work your magic, and you’ll get both.” 

He pulled his gloves on, exhaling sharply into the cold air. 

“Very well. Who’s the mark?”

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Obviously, I do not own the Leverage franchise, which this work is largely based on. Many of the roles, main ideas, dialogue outlines, etc come from the show which is not mine.
> 
> In case anyone was curious as to my reasoning, I chose Luna as the mastermind because I couldn't justify one of the boys being the mastermind - it messed up the dynamic every time I tried to put one of them in charge, since even though Noctis is technically their king, they've always worked together on very equal footing. If Luna had ever joined up with them, I like to think that she would have been the one keeping them relatively on task and focused on their goal, especially when it came to conflict resolution. 
> 
> As for the designation of roles, Gladio was obviously very easy. I debated for a long while but ultimately decided that Ignis would make a good grifter, because he's good at recognizing and adapting to people's needs...although he's obviously lost a bit of his in-game shyness. Prompto and Noctis were the most difficult, as I felt they could really go either way. However, I ultimately decided that Parker's background, upbringing, and slightly off-beat humor were better suited to Prompto, while Noctis' sarcasm and love of video games ultimately landed him in Hardison's spot.


End file.
